Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on December 01, 2006 by CyberNet.

Gritwire is yet another online homepage and feed reader but it is a little unique in the fashion that you can lay it out. Their feed reader, called the SpeedFeed Reader, gives you the feel of a desktop application because it lets you resize the different portions of the reader. In fact, everything inside of Gritwire is resizable much like the applications that you run right on your PC.

There isn’t a ton of different features that you can add to your Gritwire page but the concept is unlike other homepages that I have come across. Right now you can add things like weather, quicklinks/bookmarks, feed reader, inbox, friends, and podcasts. Here is an overview of the features as detailed by their About page:

• SpeedFeed Reader – Use our reader to organize feeds into folders, read and save content, or rate feeds and feed items. And, if you have an OPML file handy, you can upload all the feeds from there as well.
• Gritcast Player – Play Podcasts or Videocasts in our media player. We support MP3s as well as most files that are currently supported in Windows Media Player and Quicktime.
• Friends – Invite friends to your network to enhance your Gritwire experience. Recommending your favorite feed items, start and share wikis, or discuss through Gritwire.
• Inbox – Whether your getting an invite from a friend or a recommendation to a feed, you’ll be notified through your inbox. You can also start discussion logs with your friends there.
• Quicklinks – It’s really as simple as it sounds. Add your favorite links, organize them into folders. They’re there for safe-keeping.
• Wikis – Our wikis are like a virtual notepad. Use them to track notes or whatever information you’ll want easily accessible. You can share and edit wikis with your friends.

The main reason that I wanted to post about this was because I love how everything on the page is resizable. Things like the Google Reader should allow users to resize the sidebars and customize the layout a little bit. A large part about Web 2.0 sites is that they are user configurable but these newer companies are really starting to create a new definition for the word “Settings.”

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Beyond relying on its usual Hon Hai partner to assemble its next iPad, Apple has reportedly also awarded a contract to Pendragon, which was responsible for making the iPhone 4.

Originally posted at News – Apple

Daddy’s little helper, now in a more civilized, collapsible form

This 3-ounce collapsible shot “glass” will hold 1.7 ounces of liquid, allowing you to take a hit of espresso in the morning, a sip of wine with lunch and a shot of Scotch any damn time you like. The stainless steel rings collapse down and fit into a small metal keychain-able case, and should you really want to hide the cup from prying, teetotal partners, it comes with its own faux-leather zip-shut case.

I want one. As a tech blogger, I come under the professional category of “journalist.” This title brings with it some important responsibilities, one of which is an alcoholic habit. This is easy to stick to at home, but in these days of iPads and 3G connections, I often find myself working far from the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet and its liquid delights.

The traditional answer is a hip flask filled with whisky, but feeding my monkey will be so much more civilized with this tiny cup. And at just $16, I can afford to buy a replacement when I lose the first one in a drunken stupor.

Collapsible Shot Glass [Magellan’s via the Giz]

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The Photon 4G is capable of connecting to a desktop dock, which lets users display content on other connected devices. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Motorola’s latest Android smartphone lives up to its name.

Fast, big and light, the Photon 4G is Motorola’s new powerhouse smartphone, another in a trend of increasingly powerful handsets debuting this year. We had some hands-on time with the phone before its debut next week.

Picking up the device for the first time is a bit strange. With its 4.3-inch screen and considerably large physical dimensions (2.63 by 4.99 by .48 inches), you’d expect the Photon to possess some degree of heft. And yet, it doesn’t — at least, not to the degree that its appearance suggests.

At 5.57 ounces, the Photon’s weight feels more like its titular particle than anything else (aptly, an actual photon has no mass). That’s the result of the plastic construction that composes the phone’s body, complete with a slightly matted rubberized back panel to make for an improved grip. While it’s nice not to lug around a brick in my pocket, the phone seems almost too light for what ultimately feels like a cumbersome shape. It felt bulky yet still fragile in my hands — and I’ve got pretty big hands.

Flip the Photon over and you’ll notice a nod to HTC’s Thunderbolt — both devices come with a metal kickstand on the back, ostensibly for watching video on the phone for an extended period of time. It was a clever flourish, though I can’t see myself using it on surfaces other than airplane tray tables. And besides, if I decide to use the multimedia dock (not included) to hook my Photon up to a larger monitor, why worry about the 4.3-inch screen at all? Still, it’s fun to flick open and shut, and it may appeal to the frequent flying crowd.

Whether or not you want to view media on the phone’s screen, it’ll display brilliantly. I watched a few YouTube music videos with the brightness cranked up to 11, and clips ran beautifully. It’s like a miniature drive-in, sans popcorn.

One of the main perks of the Photon is its dual-core processor innards. It’s sporting the same Nvidia Tegra 2 1-GHz chip that debuted in the Motorola Atrix earlier in the year. Like the Atrix, the Photon is zippy. Applications launched swiftly, and I zoomed in and out of menu screens with relative ease. Backed by a gig of RAM, a dual-core smartphone is the way to go (until Nvidia debuts its quad-core chips for mobile, that is).

Another big bonus — for the Photon, Sprint’s Wi-Max connection works swimmingly. Page-load times were cut into fractions of what we’ve seen on rival networks like T-Mobile or AT&T. The Thunderbolt — which runs on on Verizon’s 4G LTE network — was the last phone we’ve tested that performed at speeds like these.

It’s worth mentioning that the Photon ships with Android version 2.3.4 — the latest iteration of the operating system for smartphones. While being super up to date may not be crucial to you, it’s nice to see at least one manufacturer not shipping an out of date OS directly out of the gate.

The Photon hits the street on Sprint’s 4G network on July 31, and will cost you a cool $200 with a two-year contract.

Apple shipped 20.3 million iPhones in the second quarter, up from just 8.4 million a year ago, helping it more than double its global mobile-phone market share, according to IDC.

Originally posted at News – Apple